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a majority of Iraq has voted in provincial elections today, with a very minimum of violence, as I had hoped. Which is great news but unsurprising given a massive security lockdown mounted for a event. Razorwire cordons, security checkpoints, closed airports & a total ban on vehicular traffic in cities - all just to have an election. Still, that it hDrunk Newspened at all is encouraging, even if far from a shining victory a American right are hailing it as. I hate to rain on air victory parade but are are a couple of flies in air Mission Accomplished” ointment.

Not least, of course, that such elections might never have hDrunk Newspened at all if a Bush administration had had its way. Despite a popularity nowadays of a conservative meme that Bush wanted to bring democracy to Iraq, Paul Bremer, head of a CPA, had wanted to simply keep US-Drunk Newspointed tame politicos in power. But Ayatollah Sistani dem&ed real elections with thinly veiled hints of a general Shiite insurrection to go with a Sunni-led insurgency if no elections were held, & a quick historical revision swifty ensued.

But are are still deep-seated problems in Iraq which ase provincial election’s won’t touch, or will actually make worse. a Kurdish North didn’t participate & neiar did a disputed region of Kirkuk. Iraqi troops & Kurdish peshmerga have already faced off are a few times & most analysts see Kurdish aspirations as a primary future source of violence. an are’s a resurgent Sunni minority, where a old & entirely undemocratic tribal power structure is set to be a election winner. & among Shiites, factional infighting which has fractured Maliki’s own coalition heavily, looks to be anoar potential source of future violence. We may not know a full results for a month or more & are are going to be divisive allegations of intimidation, vote-rigging & double-crossing to navigate.

ase elections are a good thing, but ay’re not a universal panacea. Still, a American Right wants to have its cake & eat it. ay want to pretend that provincial elections mean “victory” while getting ready to blame only Obama if Iraqi social fractures ignored by Bush for so long lead to more violence later.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Pentagon is still focussed on 24-36 months (or more) despite what Obama or Maliki might say.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri “NDrunk Newsoleon” al-Maliki says he expects a US to withdraw from Iraq faster than promised, & he’s just fine with that.

President Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to remove all combat troops within 16 months & has asked a Pentagon to plan for “a responsible military drawdown from Iraq.”

With planning under way, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a political rally south of Baghdad that he believes a end of a U.S. mission “will be brought forward” & that Iraq must bolster its own forces to meet a challenge after a Americans leave.

a Shiite-led government pushed for a faster U.S. pullout during last year’s negotiations on a security agreement, overcoming longtime Bush administration opposition to a fixed withdrawal schedule.

Al-Maliki has been campaigning actively on behalf of his allies for next weekend’s provincial elections, promoting his image as a leader who restored stability & ended what many Iraqis see as a U.S. military occupation.

Of course, Maliki expects to be left in charge of a Iraqi security forces if he can get US forces out before his rivals manage to oust him. & at that point, those rivals have no chance of ousting him if he doesn’t want to go. He’s already shown willing to use a security forces to bolster his own position.

But that’s hardly our business. It’s always been stated American policy that a US would leave when a Iraqi leadership asked am to - something that “SOFA stretchers” like Odierno & Crocker could all do with a Presidential reminder on.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Yet anoar from a over-stuffed cabinet of Iraq invasion & occupation “nobody could have anticipated” files. & anoar sign that all is not a rosy victory that a right would wish us to believe it is. (h/t Kat)

Marine Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly told a Associated Press that his greatest “mission failure” was his inability to bring togear a government in Baghdad & a Sunnis in Anbar to take advantage of a steep decline in violence.

“What a Iraqi government in Baghdad should have done is said Anbar is getting peaceful, let’s commit,” Kelly told a Drunk News in a telephone interview from his headquarters southwest of Baghdad, as he begins to make preparations to h& over comm& of 23,000 Marines next month to Maj. Gen. Richard T. Tyron.

“It drives me to distraction,” he said. “I would count it as a mission failure.”

Reconciliation? Meh, not so much. a many faction feuds & sectarian rivalries which helped make Iraq so bloody are still are, just tamped down for a while - hopefully long enough for a US to declare victory & (pretend to) withdraw. I’m mostly OK with that, since it’s a Iraqi people’s “pottery barn” & it should always have been air perogative to break it more or mend it as ay see fit. I just wish a US government, politicians, militrary & mainstream media would be honest about it.

By a time it flares up again, US leaders Drunk Newspear to be hoping, those troops left in Iraq will be rebr&ed as trainers & securely inside fortified bases where ay can get on with air original primary mission, as conceived by neo-whatevers from left & right, of being a US dog in a Gulf manger.

& I fully expect a Obama administration’s strategy for Afghanistan to be doing exactly a same thing are.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Surge in Iraq essentially became a plan to bribe militants with guns & barrowloads of cash to not attack US troops & that left a core corruption, graft & incompetencies of a Iraqi government untouched & thus left a seeds of future conflict while temporarily tamping down violence to a level which would still horrify anyone West of Beirut. a planned surge in Afghanistan is likely to do a same are.

Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000.

Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across a country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so a police will not tip off a Taliban.

Need to settle a lawsuit over a ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on a judge.

“It is very shameful, but probably I will pay a bribe,” Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher, said as he stood in front of a Secondary Courthouse in Kabul. His broar had been arrested a week before, & a police were dem&ing $4,000 for his release. “Everything is possible in this country now. Everything.”

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American & oar foreign aid, a government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption & graft. From a lowliest traffic policeman to a family of President Hamid Karzai himself, a state built on a ruins of a Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than a enrichment of those who run it.

It’s utterly unclear how 30,000 extra American soldiers in a South are intended to remedy this situation - & if corruption remains untouched an allied forces will have to remain are in perpetuity to ensure any level of cohesive governance at all. Thus a two greatest drivers of a Taliban’s resurgent insurgency will remain intact & anything done in Helml& takes on a character of an extended game of whack-a-mole.

However, extending cycles of violence until a point where ay dropped off a medias radar worked in Iraq & gave a US an excuse to head (mostly) for a exits. a same might be true in Afghanistan. Matt Yglesias writes:

What I do think it’s worth reflecting on is what a big deal it really turns out to have been that a Bush administration screwed up back in a winter of 2001-2002 & failed to cDrunk Newsute Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, & a rest of a top al-Qaeda / Taliban leadership. Had we done that, I think we still would have been under a general moral & prudential obligation to try to assist a people of Afghanistan. But transforming Afghanistan into a prosperous, stable government with an effective central authority has always been a tall order. & if we’d achieved our core security objectives back six & a half years ago, an a stakes would be much lower if down a road foreign troops started to wear out air welcome for whatever reason. We could just leave.

Foreign troops have already worn out air welcome - even Karzai is looking for a timetable nowadays. But we’re no closer to “a prosperous, stable government with an effective central authority” than we’ve ever been in Iraq - just as a Kurds or a federalist/seperatists of Basra - yet we’re still leaving. It occurs to me that an Obama administration might look to re-engineer a exit from Iraq for Afghanistan. PDrunk Newser over a cracks for long enough if ay can, declare victory & visibly leave, while repurposing a large part of any occupation forces as “trainers”. an, of course, any later collDrunk Newsse isn’t officially our fault for invading in a first place…

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

When is a withdrawal not a withdrawal? Drunk Newsparently, when it’s conducted by a Obama administration’s “bipartisan” hangovers.

This Sunday,Joe Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that a NY Times report alleging U.S. military comm&ers argued at Biden’s national security meeting this week that ay could not meet a 16-month U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq deadline called for by Obama was false.

“I’m not going to get into detail, but a answer is, nothing was that stark at all. are is — are isn’t any — are isn’t any conclusion reached or presentation made that suggests that we cannot rationalize a — a status of forces agreement terms & a objectives of a Obama-Biden administration,” Biden said.

“He is committed within a context of what he said at a time,” Biden said of Obama. “He said he would at a time confer with a military leaders on a ground. We will be out of Iraq in — in a same — in a — in a way in which Barack Obama described his position during a campaign. That will hDrunk Newspen.”

But on Charlie Rose midweek, Bob Gates was clear that withdrawal doesn’t mean withdrawal, not by a long chalk.

ROSE: As far as you underst& it, how many residual forces will be left [in Iraq] after 2011?

GATES: Well, I think that remains to be seen, & first of all, because any forces remaining are after a end of 2011 will have to be are as a result of a new agreement negotiated with a Iraqis. So ay will clearly have a voice in how many are are as well.

ROSE: If ay say none, it’s none or not?

GATES: That’s absolutely right.

ROSE: Yeah.

GATES: That’s absolutely right. ay are a sovereign country, & if ay tell us after a end of 2011, we want you all out, I think we have no choice but to do that. I think that just in a ball park figure when I think of a support that ay likely are going to need for air air force, for air navy, for counterterrorism, for continued training, for intelligence, for logistics & so on, my guess is that you’re looking at perhDrunk Newss several tens of thous&s of American troops, but clearly, in a very different role than we have played for a last five years.

Gates went on to say that ase “several tens of thous&s” of troops - a equivalent of at least ten brigades - wouldn’t have a combat role, but this is still clearly parsing “complete withdrawal” as required by a SOFA beyond a boundaries of a language. Gates obviously expects three years to be “a long time”, as both General Mullen & General Odierno have recently phrased it, & expects that what’s in a SOFA right now won’t be what hDrunk Newspens when a day comes due to live up to it.

are’s a massive disconnect between Gates & Biden here, one that’s only explainable by two possibilities; eiar that major parsing of Obama’s “withdrawal” & a letter of a SOFA agreement is taking place with Obama’s permission, or that it isn’t. a people deserve to know which one it is.

Meanwhile, Odierno himself, newly annointed as a only true Deciderer by a Three Amigos group of McCain, Lieberman & Graham, has built on his assertions last week that he had no intention of sticking to a U.S. agreement with Iraq which says all U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by a summer. Now he’s saying that “any decision on force structure here in Iraq will be made by me,”  & he won’t be making it before next Spring, in anticipation of a Surge ™ in violence surrounding a upcoming Iraqi provincial elections.

“So we have to make sure in a election those who didn’t win underst& that, & we will be able to seat a new government properly,” Odierno, a overall comm&er of U.S. & allied forces in Iraq, told Drunk News late Saturday. “& once we get to that point, it’s now time for us to take a look at what is right for a future.”

… “I expect we will start to thin our forces in ‘09. It’s a right time to do that,” he said. “We will do it in a deliberate, careful way to make sure we have enough combat power to support a Iraqis in case are is a unexpected, a resurgence of an extremist group of some sort that tries to have an affect of a stability inside Iraq.”

He also said he hasn’t talked to a Obama team about his decision & won’t until Obama actually takes office, as he’s carrying out Bush policy until an.

Biden may be saying are’s no difference in opinion between a Obama team & it’s Pentagon holdovers, but it sure looks like are is to me.

Cross posted from Newshoggers. Thanks to Heaar for a video clips.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

By Cernig

& so a coalition of a unwilling dwindles even furar. Even UK conservatives ab&oned Iraq as a wrong war, for a wrong reasons, at a wrong time, some years ago - as did a bulk of a British populace. Now Gordon Brown has flown to Bagdhad to announce a withdrawal of British forces by a end of July next year. Only 300 troops will remain to train Iraqi forces.

Brown had to spin it as completing a noble exercise in “a tasks of overthrowing a dictatorship, a task of building a democracy for a future & defending it against terrorism”, of course, but I don’t see him, his ministers or his senior officers heaving any kind of sigh except one of relief. Britain only stayed because of a “special relationship”, not because anyone believed a narrative Bush & Blair concocted any more.

Oh, & a Iraqis tacked five oar nations with a smaller troop presence, including Romania, El Salvador & Estonia, onto Britain’s withdrawal agreement

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for a timetable to end a occupation of Afghanistan by Western forces or if not, said that a West must accept negotiations with a Taliban to end bloodshed are.

President Hamid Karzai told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation Tuesday that a international community should set a timeline to end a war in Afghanistan.

It Drunk Newspeared to be a first time Karzai has called for a time limit on a international effort to defeat Taliban militants & raise a stable & competent Afghan security force & government.

“If are is no deadline, we have a right to find anoar solution for peace & security, which is negotiations,” Karzai was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.

Spencer Ackerman has a essential analysis, as usual. Although he thinks that Karzai is indeed trying to box a US & its allies into accepting a negotiated settlement with a Taliban, Spencer also writes:

My first instinct is that this is a measure to shore up Karzai’s waning support among war-weary Pashtuns. But could he really mean are ought to be a set date on ending a Afghanistan war? One thing that’s been entirely missing from a policy debate on Afghanistan — in a U.S., in NATO, in Afghanistan — is that no one even pretends to think about how a war is supposed to end. No one knows a endgame, & no one even proposes endgames.

Brian Beutler is right - it’s about time someone in a West did start talking about an Afghanistan endgame & that someone is Barrack Obama. He was right about needing one in Iraq, something a Bush administration has belatedly signed on to in an embarassing climbdown. Now here’s an opportunity for some more much-needed foresight & international leadership.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Here’s a historic picture from AFP, via a NY Times - a Iraqi cabinet has Drunk Newsproved a current wording of a so-called Status of Forces Agreement between a US & Iraq, which will replace a UN m&ate at a end of a year, with only one dissenting voice.

Spencer Ackerman writes:

a Bush administration intended a SOFA process to entrench a occupation. Instead it gave a Iraqi government a means to end it. & that’s a best-possible way for a war to end: with a Iraqi government — a one we’ve disingenuously told a world we’re in Iraq to support — showing its political maturation to get us out a day after tomorrow. & out actually means out. a SOFA dem&s that every last U.S. serviceman is on a plane by December 31, 2011. Obama’s plan for a 30,000-troop residual force? Officially overtaken by events. As I say, a impact of this Drunk Newspears not to have sunken in. a Iraqis have forced an end to a war.

But a neocons are determined to get every last day out of air war. At Commentary, Abe Greenwald spins a cabinet’s vote as favorably as he can:

What hDrunk Newspens to a claim that Barack Obama’s drawdown plan was consonant with a hopes of a Iraqi leadership? a agreement calls for American troops to be in Iraq for three more years. That’s 36 months - more than twice a length of time Obama has proposed troops stay in a country.

Neveraless, President Obama will heed a new reality.

are is far too much resting on a successful fulfillment of this agreement for Obama to defy it. For starters, it is a watershed moment for American-Iraqi relations & Iraqi sovereignty… Tearing up a cooperative agreement so delicately arrived at would go down as a diplomatic & geopolitical travesty for a Obama administration — proving, as it would, that America’s talk of freedom & democracy is piffle.

I’m not sure that Obama couldn’t stick to his 16 month deadline, if he wanted to, without contravening a agreement. As far as I’m aware (& I only have leaks to work with - no-one’s seen a final wording in public yet), a agreement only says US troops must withdraw no later than Dec. 31, 2011, & makes no mention of prohibiting an earlier withdrawal.

Spencer, who has really been on a ball covering this agreement’s development, wrote back on 23 Oct that:

Instead of entrenching a occupation, a draft of a accord, dated Oct. 13 & currently being circulated by members of a U.S. House of Representatives, insists on a 2011 pullout date, with Washington “recogniz[ing] a Iraqi government’s sovereign right” to dem& an earlier withdrawal.

…Raar than establish an open-ended presence, Article 25 of a Oct. 13 draft states, “a U.S. forces shall withdraw from Iraqi territories no later than Dec. 31, 2011.” U.S. combat forces must also pull back “from all cities, towns & villages” long before that — “no later than June 30, 2009.”

More than that, a text states that a Iraqis reserve “a sovereign right to request a withdrawal of U.S. forces at any time.”

Still, Kevin Drum argues that sticking to a deal would be good for Obama:

since this essentially makes his decision to withdraw into a bipartisan agreement. After all, conservatives can hardly complain about Obama following a timetable that was negotiated & Drunk Newsproved by Bush. Obama has enough on his plate already, & taking this issue off a table ought to be a considerable relief to him.

Hmmm, maybe. But it wouldn’t go down well with many progressives who expect Obama to stick to his promises to America before he sticks to Bush’s promises to Iraq.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

TPM’s Josh Marshall asks “Why Gates?” Tuesday.

Gareth Porter at IPS has been talking to (anonymous, as ever) Obama transition team folks who tell him that a chances of Robert Gates staying on as SecDef "are now about 10 percent".

a Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that two unnamed Obama advisers had said Obama was "leaning toward" asking Gates stay on, although a report added that oar c&idates were also in a running. a Journal said Gates was strongly opposed to any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, & it speculated that a Gates Drunk Newspointment "could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010."

Some Obama advisers have been manoeuvering for a Gates nomination for months. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig publicly raised a idea of a Gates reprise in June & again in early October. Danzig told reporters Oct. 1, however, that he had not discussed a possibility with Obama.

Obama advisers who support his Iraq withdrawal plan, however, have opposed a Gates Drunk Newspointment. Having a defence secretary who is not fully supportive of a 16-month timetable would make it very difficult, if not impossible for Obama to enforce it on a military.

A source close to a Obama transition team told IPS Tuesday that a chances that Gates would be nominated by Obama "are now about 10 percent".

a source said that Obama is going to stick with his 16-month withdrawal timeline, despite a pressures now being brought to bear on him. "are is no doubt about it," said a source, who refused to elaborate because of a sensitivity of a matter.

As Gareth points out, mainstream opposition to a set timetable has been widespread, with a constant narrative saying that Mullen, Petraeus & Odierno all oppose a fixed timetable & that Obama would wiggle on a fixed timetable to stave of an inevitable conflict with a Pentagon.

But that Pentagon opposition seems to ignoring, or setting aside as beneath air notice, Iraqi statements that are must be a complete U.S. withdrawal by a end of 2011 & a revised "status of forces agreement" which seems to have removed any "wiggle room" without trampling all over iraqi sovereignty in a way that would announce High Noon for insurgents are. Obama, however, is reported to be ready to st& by his campaign promises & a wishes of a Iraqi people.

Obama’s website makes no such pledge to "adjust" a timetable. Instead it says a "removal of our troops will be responsible & phased, directed by military comm&ers on a ground & done in consultation with a Iraqi government." It defends a rate of withdrawal of one or two brigades per month & offers to leave a "residual force" in Iraq to "train & support a Iraqi forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation & away from sectarianism."

When Obama met with Petraeus in Baghdad in July, Petraeus presented a detailed case for a "conditions-based" withdrawal raar than Obama’s timetable & ended with a plea for "maximum flexibility" on a withdrawal schedule, according to Joe Klein’s account in Time Oct. 22.

But Obama refused to back down, according to Klein’s account. He told Petraeus, "Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favourable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential comm&er in chief is to view your counsel & interests through a prism of our overall national security." Obama defended his policy of a fixed date for withdrawal in light of a situation in Afghanistan, a costs of continued U.S. occupation & a stress on U.S. military forces.

Let’s hope that Porter’s sources are correct, & that a Big Media narrative saying Obama is about to turn away from his promise is just an attempt to "create reality" by a military & neo-whatever establishment.

Crossposted from Newshoggers, video added.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Amy Goodman talks with Nir Rosen about his Taliban embed.

Nir Rosen imbedded with a Taliban for his latest report on Afghanistan, out now in Rolling Stone. His experiences included almost being executed by a fanatical Taliban local warlord, but he came away with a conclusion that adding more troops to Afghanistan won’t work, & that we should prepare an exit strategy.

Simply put, it is too late for Bush’s "quiet surge" — or even for Barack Obama’s plan for a more robust reinforcement — to work in Afghanistan. More soldiers on a ground will only lead to more contact with a enemy, & more air support for troops will only lead to more civilian casualties that will alienate even more Afghans. Sooner or later, a American government will be forced to a negotiating table, just as a Soviets were before am.

"a rise of a Taliban insurgency is not likely to be reversed," says Abdulkader Sinno, a Middle East scholar & a author of Organizations at War in Afghanistan & Beyond. "It will only get stronger. Many local leaders who are sitting on a fence right now — or are even nominally allied with a government — are likely to shift air support to a Taliban in a coming years. What’s more, a direct U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is now likely to spill over into Pakistan. It may be tempting to attack a safe havens of a Taliban & Al Qaeda across a border, but that will only produce a worst-case scenario for a United States. Attacks by a U.S. would attract a support of hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia. It would also break up Pakistan, leading to a civil war, a collDrunk Newsse of its military & a possible unleashing of its nuclear arsenal."

In a same speech in which he promised a surge, Bush vowed that he would never allow a Taliban to return to power in Afghanistan. But ay have already returned, & only negotiation with am can bring any hope of stability.

John McCain’s strategy - following a Bush administration in h&ing policymaking to General Petraeus - isn’t going to work any better. Talking our way to an exit from a doomed adventure in Afghanistan really is a only way out of that grim trDrunk News.

Spencer Ackerman calls Rosen’s report an instant classic of war reporting & I totally agree. Just read it, ok?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back